Genesis 1:1 comments: Who is God?

Genesis 1:1 ¶  In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

We are first going to discuss the answers to two questions that are very important for every Christian to resolve in their heads. There will by necessity be some repetition in my statements to reinforce what I am saying. First, we must ask, “Who is the God of the Bible?”

The testimony of the Bible is abundantly clear that the universe did not come into being by itself and there is no evidence that there are alternate universes. The universe is also not eternally preexistent as a time is given here, in the beginning, and an action by God as in God created.

It is impossible to believe the Bible and, at the same time, believe in the Big Bang theory where all matter and energy comes from the primordial explosion of the singularity, the size of a period in a sentence. Nor is it possible to believe in its antecedent belief, the Kabala’s mustard seed that explodes into the universe, or the Hindu’s cosmic egg that explodes into the universe and believe in the God of the Bible. The physical universe is a production of God as all matter, energy, and time can be attributed directly to Him. He has no beginning and no end and is beyond our ability to finitely reason.

Modern man, since Isaac Newton, has come to believe in reductionism where, for instance, in biology the whole is defined by its parts. It is a bottom-up belief. However, the Bible teaches a top-down structure of the universe. The parts are determined by the context. As an example, the words rite/right are defined by their context in a sentence in phrases such as, “a religious rite or ritual,” or, “turn right,” or, “your legal right.” So, genes and their expression are determined by the organism they are in. I share the same genes with a fruit fly but we are vastly different creatures because there is a design, a mold, an idea that makes me different from them. Many different buildings are made partly with bricks; the University of Pennsylvania’s Golkin Hall, my house, and the local high school. However, they are all different buildings because of their design plans.

So, biology and all reality, to be understood properly, should be understood by the fact that it is all based on a design formed in the mind of the Creator. Then, the smaller parts and their place in the scheme of thing come more into focus.

God is not the subject of science because He cannot be experimented on or called into an equation. Science can only study what they can see or measure and all unseen theoretical entities are simply modern myths even if a scientist defines seeing in a different way than a non-scientist does. Saying that they have faith that one day they will prove something they cannot prove merely moves that scientist’s faith into the realm of religion. Faith is not science and science is not faith. Science has limits. Faith is only limited by God’s will for that person having the faith. One can study the mechanism by which a thing is done but no one can study God unless He chooses to reveal Himself as He has done in the Bible.

God’s creation of the universe is not only confirmed by Moses, writing Genesis under the inspiration of God, but also Isaiah.

Isaiah 42:5  Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:

Isaiah 45:18  For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

King David;

Psalm 33:6  By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.

And the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

Mark 13:19  For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be.

Science requires that if you put forth a proposition, a statement of presumed fact, that you should be able to make certain predictions from it. This verse says that God created. So, one could logically assume that since an intelligent entity created everything that a certain degree of design and order must be present in it as in our experience order does not come from disorder without intelligent guidance. This is, indeed, the case. Physicists are looking for a unifying “theory of everything.” Well, it is right here in front of us. He is the God of the Bible. His existence explains everything from how the universe is held together to the moral sense of human beings as you will see in the following study.

Who is God? He is the uncreated person and entity who created all that is. He simply is, as He said Himself, I AM THAT I AM.

Exodus 3:13  And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? 14  And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

It is a nonsensical question to ask who created God. Such a question is a philosophical absurdity. It is like asking; could God create a rock so heavy He could not lift it? Such questions are the pure gibberish of the skeptic whose mind is blinded by the god of this world, Satan.

God is the source of all reality; seen and unseen. In Job God states that everything from dust forming into a clod of dirt in a farmer’s field to lions catching their prey, with the movements of distant galaxies to rain happening in places on earth where there is no man are all direct results of His direct actions. Read Job, chapter 38. God is not a watchmaker winding up the clock and walking away or standing to admire His work. He makes the hands move and the tick-tock sound is part of His second-by-second control of all events. So, scientific thought, even with Christians since Isaac Newton, by reducing God to the ultimate first cause without an active role in every moment of our existence, is just simply one of the things that is in error about modern thinking. Nothing happens by itself without direction, meaningless and pointless, a result of blind chance. Absolutely nothing.

The question always arises. Why does calamity and disaster happen if God is good? We will be forced to discuss that later.